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Killer Coke. Unthinkable. Undrinkable.

In 2003, the Student Union of University College Dublin (UCD) led a campus wide campaign to educate and encourage students to act on banning Coca-Cola products on campus in response to alleged human rights abuses by the corporation in Columbia.
Coca-Cola became increasingly associated with anti-union activities in Colombia, where paramilitaries with documented links to the government regularly abducted, intimidated, tortured or murdered trade union leaders, based on reports from Columbian trade union Sinaltrainal.

During the debates over the potential ban, UCD was the largest student market for Coca-Cola as Ireland’s largest university. The referendum led by the Students’ Union to ban the sale of the company’s products in student union outlets on campus was passed with 59 per cent in favour of the ban. This was one of the first college-based campaigns in the world to boycott Coca-Cola. Since then, more than 200 colleges have followed the example, including Trinity College, the National College of Art and Design, NUI Maynooth and Queens University, Belfast.

Produced by: UCD Student’s Union

Year: 2003